The Hare and The Hounds

We got down to bid-ness last weekend with the Hare and Hounds show. It was a perfect day for a gallery, art-scavenger hunt. Curated by two very clever local boys, mike and dave, this was a show for the masses. 50 different artists created a piece of work to hang on one wall of the gallery. This piece was to show the public what kind of work you generally do. Then, we each made another piece of work to hang somewhere in the Mission District, in public, and devised a map to go along with it. Whoever decided they wanted to find that second piece of art, bought the map and went a-hunting for it! The hunt started at noon, and I got there at noon-o-two, i think, and my map was gone! I was thrilled, of course, but we all waited with baited breath...wondering who bought it, what he'd think, would he follow all the instructions?

I made a map that was like a little book with two sleeves inside. The book cover I used was called "The Hunting of the Snark" (so i decided to call my "public" piece of artwork 'the snark'). It came with a polaroid camera and the buyer was instructed to have photos taken of themselves along the way. I "hid" my piece just two doors down from the gallery, in the corner bodega, that's owned by this really fantastic family.

I had gone in to the bodega that morning to ask Mohammed if it would be okay for him to be part of this. His job was simple: in a few hours or so, someone, a man or woman, would come in and show him a card that says, "thats for me" and he would hand them the piece of artwork. The person then had to take his/her photo with them. He was into it. The plan was set!

So, even though my piece was close to the gallery, I wanted my map buyer to have an adventure. Get to know the city a little better. So, I sent them on a many-stopped tour of about six blocks and rounded them back to where they started.
Here are some highlights from the map I made:
the inside of the book had one pocket with the instructions, and another pocket with a tie, to store all the polaroids, once they were shot

(you can click on any of the photos and see them bigger)
He had to go into Candystore on 16th street and give them a ticket, and they handed him an old jack of diamonds card clothespined to a little velum envelope, inside that, I'd typed on an old journal page: 'in the game of hearts, jack of diamonds is a really, really good card'
when he went to Adobe bookstore, he had to find a certain book, open it to page 88...where he found this note (below) tucked inside


I truly lucked out with my 'art patron', who's name is Dave. When I met him at the end of his hunt, with art piece, map/book, and polaroid camera in hand, he was smiling from ear to ear. And so was I. It was really thrilling to hear him tell me about his trip and how he'd never been in Adobe Bookstore before & loved it. And how, at one point in my instructions, he was to write his name in chalk on the sidewalk (but I'd forgotten to include chalk!) and he looked down and there was a tiny piece of chalk on the ground...he picked it up and wrote, dave was here. He showed me all his photos and then turned the map/book, and piece of work back into the gallery.

You, too, can enjoy the fruits of others labor: All work will be hanging in the gallery thru the 22nd of March.

*The polaroids above are just a sampling from my day, not shots from Dave's hunt. But I hope to get to the gallery and take photos of all the great work there!*